


Lashing Out

by Unproductive_Fangirl



Series: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power One-Shots [3]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Trauma, F/F, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, catradora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:20:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24882958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unproductive_Fangirl/pseuds/Unproductive_Fangirl
Summary: A friendly sparring match suddenly takes a turn after a blast of electricity hits Catra, muddling her thoughts. Next thing anyone knows Glimmer's arm is bleeding and Catra is running away. Naturally Adora follows, and once Catra has calmed down they attempt to figure out why Catra reacted the way she did.TW: Implied Past Abuse and PTSD.
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Series: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power One-Shots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1193110
Comments: 3
Kudos: 152





	Lashing Out

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warning: Implied Past Abuse and PTSD

It had been an accident. No, accident was the wrong word. Catra hadn’t been thinking clearly, but she had meant to do it. Or at least, part of her had. She had known her claws were out and she had lashed out with the intent to break skin. The issue was she didn’t know why she had reacted that way.

Everything had happened so fast. They had just been messing around, a bunch of them sparring in the gardens, and Catra had found she was actually having fun. It was nice to use skills she had spent so long honing again, and yeah there was some smugness when she would manage to land a blow on one of the magically charged princesses. Then in a moment everything had shifted. Scorpia had hit her with a blast of electricity, barely enough to make her fur stand up. Yet the next thing she knew her claws were out and when Glimmer grabbed her arm she lashed out. The feeling of the skin breaking under her claws was all to familiar.

She didn’t stick around. Still acting on instinct she had turned and run before anyone else had time to process what had happened. If they called out after her she didn’t hear it. Her body took her automatically back into the castle, not stopping until she had reached her room and was out on the balcony.

Only then did the adrenalin start to wear off. As it did confusion took over. Why had she done that? The question circled over and over as Catra sat down, pulling her legs up to her chest, tail wrapping around them. She was so caught up in her thoughts that she barely even felt Melog come to sit next to her.

Honestly she had no concept of how long it was before she heard a knock on the door. It might have been five minutes, it might have been an hour. It didn’t matter. 

“Catra?” 

It wasn’t surprising to hear Adora’s voice coming through. Who else would have come looking for her? Catra didn’t get up or say anything, but after a moment she felt Melog do so. She didn’t bother to look around, but after a couple minutes she heard the door open, and knew they had done something to single to Adora to come in. 

A moment later Melog was pressed against her side again, and she could hear Adora making her way over to the balcony. Catra glanced over from the corner of her eye when Adora sat down next to her, though there was still plenty of room between them. She appreciated that, even if part of her wanted to move over to the other girl. Instead she stayed where she was.

They sat like that for a few minutes, before Adora finally broke the silence. “Are you alright?” 

“I’m fine,” Catra replied automatically, though it didn’t carry the normal confidence. After a second she glanced over, voice softer as she asked “How’s Glimmer?” 

“She’s fine,” Adora assured “It wasn’t deep, Bow wrapped it up in no time.” 

“Good,” Catra nodded, looking away from Adora again. That was something at least. Not great, but it did make her relax a little. “Sorry. About running off.” 

That was one of the many things that she had been trying to work on. Not running away from her problems but facing them. In the grand scheme of things though, it wasn’t high on her list of things to work on. 

“It’s okay. I understand.”

Did she? Catra didn’t know how she could. Adora didn’t run away from her problems, she tended to run straight at them even when it would be smarter to give herself time to think of a better plan.

In the pause that followed Adora shifted a little closer, and Catra didn’t move away. Her tail relaxed a bit so it was resting lightly against Adora’s leg.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Catra looked down, her thoughts spinning a bit at the question.

“Catra-” Adora sighed, slight exasperation in it, which made Catra’s ears lower a bit more “I need you to talk to me.” 

“I’m serious Adora, I don’t know,” Catra shook her head, though her comments didn’t have their normal bit or confidence “I was fine. I was actually having fun. It was the most relaxed I’ve felt around that many people since we got here, and then all of a sudden- I don’t know. It’s like a switch flipped and my body was in defend mode.”

“Okay,” Adora nodded, shifting a bit so she was facing towards Catra, legs crossed, though she kept her leg against her tail. “Let’s figure it out then, yeah? Or at least, try to.” 

Catra let out a breath, knowing she was right, but being open was hard, even if it was with Adora. That was another thing she was supposed to be working on though. Slowly she shifted so she was facing Adora as well, letting her legs fall to sit cross legged too, her knees touching the other’s. “Okay.”

Reaching over Adora took her hand, which Catra was grateful for. The contact helped ground her, which was helped by the feeling of Melog pressed against her back. “So, I think I might have an idea, but you’re not going to like it.” 

“Yeah, well, pretty used to hearing things I don’t like,” Catra attempted to tease, though when she saw Adora deflate a bit she squeezed her hand “I would rather know, even if I don’t like it.” 

Adora gave her a small smile, though there was a slight sadness in her eyes and Catra had to fight the desire to try and make a joke so it would go away. “I think it had to do with the blast Scorpia hit you with.” 

“Okay, but why?” Catra shook her head. It made sense that it was that, it had happened right after, but she still didn’t know why. “It didn’t even hurt. It felt like a static shock at worst.” 

“Maybe it wasn’t about the pain,” Adora wasn’t really looking at her, her attention on their intertwined hands instead.

Catra watched Adora, picking up on the hesitance. The uncertainty. It didn’t do much to reassure her, but she tried to push that away. “Why else would I have lashed out? I wasn’t angry-” 

That’s why she had always lashed out in the past. It had almost always been when she didn’t know how to process her anger. There was a slight drop in her stomach remembering all the times she had scratched up Adora because of something like that.

“Anger wasn’t the only time you lashed out,” Adora glanced up, trying to catch her eye, though Catra’s slipped away at the next statement “It also happened when you were scared-” 

“I’m not scared of Scorpia.”

“No, but maybe you’re scared of her power,” She was looking down at their hands again “It’s probably not even consciously. But Scorpia’s power- it comes from the black garnet.” 

“So what?” Despite the comment Catra knew where Adora was going with this. Her tail wrapped around her.

“It’s the same place Shadow Weaver’s power came from,” Adora’s words were careful, but the only sign Catra gave was her hand tightening a bit in Adora’s. “Scorpia’s electricity- it resembles the power she had when we were kids.” 

Catra’s jaw clenched. “I’m not scared of Shadow Weaver. Besides, she’s dead. There’s nothing left to be scared of.”

“It would be okay if you were.” Catra didn’t have to look up to know Adora was looking at her, remarkably calm. Steady. Like always. “After everything she did to us- to you. It would make sense if it had an effect. I mean, it still messes with me sometimes.” 

“It does?” Catra looked up, eyes searching Adora’s face for any sign she was lying, but of course there wasn’t any. It wasn’t like Adora to lie about something like that, even if it was to make someone else feel better.

“Yeah. Sometimes I get nightmares about it, but mostly it comes when I’m scared someone’s disappointed. The first time Glimmer’s mom got mad at us I was terrified because of everything she did,” Adora was looking away now as well, and Catra could tell it was hard for her to talk about this too. “And seeing you get zapped triggered it too.”

“She never zapped you,” Catra shook her head at that. It wasn’t said to try and discredit Adora, she knew Shadow Weaver had had an effect on her as well. She just didn’t understand.

“No, but when I saw the electricity surrounding you, I froze. Everything in me wanted to rush to you, to put myself between you and the blast, but I couldn’t. My body wouldn’t move,” She played with Catra’s fingers as she spoke. Adora had never been good at standing still. “I felt helpless, just like when we were kids, angry at myself for not doing anything, but also scared of what would happen if I did. If it it got to me that badly, it would be totally understandable if it got to you too.” 

“So even after she’s dead she still gets to mess with my head?” Catra let out a short laugh, though there was no humor in it “Great. Fantastic. She would find away to keep messing with us even when she’s gone.” 

Everything with Shadow Weaver was so complicated. Mostly she hated her, which was convenient since Catra wanted to hate her. No matter how much she didn’t want it though, there was a small part of her that didn’t. That knew she had still died to help them. Died to save her.

“I know,” Adora was giving her a small smile when Catra glanced up “It really, really sucks. But she can’t actually hurt us anymore. All that’s left is our thoughts, and we’ve always been good at finding ways to scare those off.” 

“Yeah, I guess,” Catra muttered, though it didn’t actually reassure her that much. There was truth to what Adora said, they had always been good at distracting each other from things they didn’t want to think about. This felt different though. Not as simple as finding distractions from sad thoughts or bad moods.

“Hey,” Adora’s voice was soft, reassuring, “Talk to me.” 

It still took a moment before Catra finally replied “I don’t think just scaring away the thoughts after they show up is enough. I don’t want to lash out like that again.” 

She didn’t want to hurt anyone. The memory of how many times she’d done it in the past sent guilt through her. Given how she spent her time the odds were good that if it happened again it would be at Adora, and she had already scratched her up to many times to count.

“Good point.”

Catra could almost see the wheels in Adora’s head spinning. She squeezed her hand “I don’t expect you to have an answer. Just- you wanted to know what I was thinking.” 

Despite the fact that Adora nodded Catra knew she was still trying to figure it out. She tried not to feel to guilty about that, but it wasn’t easy. 

“I don’t have an answer,” Adora admitted after a long moment, sighing “Maybe we should talk to the others. Casta or Perfuma might have an idea of how to help. They know more about all of this kind of stuff then I do.” 

“Maybe,” Catra agreed, though she didn’t like the idea. She still wasn’t super comfortable talking about this kind of stuff. Even with Adora it could be hard sometimes, she couldn’t imagine what it would be like with anyone else. If it meant she wouldn’t hurt anyone though, maybe it would be worth it.

Adora gave her a soft smile, before she shifted to her knees, leaning forward to kiss Catra’s forehead, letting them linger near each other “We’ll figure it out. We always do.” 

“Yeah,” Catra smiled a bit as well, pushing herself up to meet Adora for a quick kiss, staying near her even when they pulled apart.

For a long moment they just stayed like that, and for the first time since the zapp her thoughts went quiet. Everything was a mess, but Adora was there, and if they were together then they could figure anything out. They always had, so there was no reason to worry about it at that moment. It would be fine.

“I guess I should go talk to Glimmer, huh?” Catra said softly, reluctant to break the silence but knowing it was something she had to do. She’d put it off long enough as it was.

“Yeah,” Adora sounded reluctant as well, but she pushed herself up, Catra doing the same.

Instead of walking away though, Adora took her hand, and a second later they were kissing again. Longer this time, neither of them wanting to be the first to pull away.

“I’m with you,” Adora said softly “No matter what.” 

“I know,” Catra assured, squeezing Adora’s hand “I’m with you too. Always.”

Both smiling, they finally started out of the room, their hands linked together, Melog trotting in front of them, purring softly.


End file.
